


Faces Turned Forward

by EudociaCovert



Series: The Best Path [12]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: A bit of cussing, Canon Dead Character, Conversations with Strangers, Gen, Graphic Nightmare Depictions, Jet's crazy brain, Jet's issues have issues, Jet's one of the least sneaky characters this time, Longshot's a bit cheeky, Nightmares, Order of the White Lotus, Sneakiness, Spirit World, Two Bros Chillin in a Restroom, what happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 04:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21173606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert
Summary: Jet has several encounters with interesting people. Not all of these happen while he's awake. 12th in 'The Best Path' series.





	Faces Turned Forward

Jet’s hands are on fire.

He twists with a hoarse cry and falls to the floor. It’s wooden, hewn and placed and secured by his own hands, and it ignites at his touch. He stumbles back, brain split in half by two horrors; the way the fire takes hold of the room and the way it gnaws at his flesh. Making his way around the growing flames, he pushes out of his tent.

The heat grows behind him, but all he sees is the peaceful sight of their tree settlement in the early morning, still whole, still _safe_.

The cracking of wood joins the crackle of flames and the platform falls from under Jet’s feet. He falls with it. There is no rope to reach for, no branch. He keeps his hands tucked close to his chest and closes his eyes.

The ground meets him, but he doesn’t feel the impact beyond the effort it takes to pull in a breath.

But maybe that’s because of the smoke.

_Everything is burning._

The trees are alight, from the ground to the sky, blackened and crackling. The leaves that hid them from danger for so many years burn to nothing in seconds, baring the home Jet made to his watering eyes. The ropes are nothing but strings of flame which shrivel and snap and fall. Their houses are unrecognizable, just angular black silhouettes immersed in fire.

“Jet!”

That’s Smellerbee’s voice.

She’s here now, looking down at him, eyes blown wide in terror. Her hand is extended, reaching towards him. “We have to run! Give me your hand!”

_No._ There’s still fire on him. When he looks his hands are twisted and black, charred and useless. The flame is eating it’s way up his forearms.

He’s not safe to touch.

“Just run,” he croaks. “Smellerbee, _run_.”

“Not without you!” she lunges, her fingers curling around his arm, and then she’s _gone._ No fight, no scream, just _flames_, everywhere, eating her up all at once.

Jet doesn’t catch her when she falls. He runs away, mind a dying swarm, tucked in on himself, he needs water, water, _water-_

The reservoir is empty when he reaches it. He stumbles, falling to his knees. Everywhere he looks there are flames, the skyline dead to fire and smoke. Curling over he _screams_-

He’s on his back. Grass tickles at his neck and the breeze blows cool and gentle against his face. The sky is blue, unmarred by smoke. There is no heat, no pain. When he lifts his hands they are whole and untouched, wrists turning and fingers bending at his will.

Jet sits up.

A man is watching, standing a body-length away. His white robes billow around him, slow, as if he’s underwater.

Jet exhales every bit of air in his lungs until his chest hurts with its emptiness. Breathes back in. “I’m dreaming.”

“Yes,” the man answers.

Jet cocks his chin up and tucks his hands under his knees, out of sight. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Let me guess, I stand before two paths…”

The man smiles, wry and sad. He’s hard to look at, too soft, too pale for the world around him. “An important choice still looms before you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You never do.”

Jet thinks on that for a moment. The meadow is silent but for the grass, which hisses at a gust of growing wind. There’s something to the air, to the green around him and the blue above. It looks… too real, too _alive_ to be _true._ “I don’t remember this place when I’m awake, do I.”

“Sometimes you do. But not often, and not clearly.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe that is the nature of the Spirit World, at times.”

Unease creeps up Jet’s spine, settling at the back of his neck and prickling against his arms, disrupting the lulling calm the meadow always invokes. The _Spirit World?_ “I thought this was a dream.”

The man doesn’t answer.

Jet stands, slow. The world has become a predator. “Wait. Why me? Why am I here?”

Jet holds a healthy respect for spirits; he lived in a forest for most his life and he isn’t an idiot. But he was never the one to notice that the trees felt a bit _wrong_, or see a flash of strange movement out of the corner of his eye, or hear a sound and know without a doubt that it wasn’t an animal. If they had disturbed something they shouldn’t Longshot should have been the one pulled in, even Smellerbee. Maybe Shi, given the mask he keeps close.

“You stand before two paths…”

“So, I’m here because I have a _destiny_? I don’t believe in that.”

“You have a choice. That’s different.”

“…Right. I guess there’s no chance you’ll explain just what this choice is.”

The man smiles again.

Jet sighs. “You don’t look like spirits in the stories do.”

“I’m not very old, as Spirits go. I still cling to the trappings of life.”

Jet swallows, a new worry turning in his stomach. “You aren’t one of my kids.”

“I am not.”

The worry becomes dread. “You aren’t… family, right? It’s been years, it’s so hard to remember _faces_ from- from back then, from before…”

“No, child.” The ghost eyes are gentle. “I’m not your father.”

“Then who are you?”

The man grimaces. It’s easy when he acts more human to recognize how _not_ human he’d seemed before. “Must we go through this every time?”

“I want to _know_.”

“If you wanted to know, you would remember.”

The dread grows into alarm. It rattles in his limbs, tightens in his face. “I forget things while I’m asleep too?”

“Yes. If they’re too hard to face.”

The next question feels like a logical leap.

“Did I kill you?”

“No.” The man’s face becomes grave. “But if we had met among the living you would have tried.”

Jet is suddenly very _sure_.

“You’re a soldier,” The words scratch up his throat. “A Fire Nation soldier.”

“I am dead,” the man answers, flat. “Nothing but that matters, anymore.”

“Of course it matters.” Jet isn’t armed, and this is a ghost, a _Spirit._ He can’t fight a Spirit, not in the _Spirit World_. But oh, he’s tempted to go for the man anyways. He paces, restless. He cannot fight, he cannot run. Instinctually he knows that the encounter must play out in this meadow, that to leave would risk stranding himself in the world forever. He’s heard of them, people lost in the night, who fall asleep and do not die but cannot be awakened. He can’t do that. His kids would be alone. _He _would be alone.

He whirls back on the man. “Why have you brought me here? Let me go!”

“I have not brought you here,” the ghost says, still so damn _calm_. “If anything, we draw each other to this place when circumstances align.”

“When circumstances align? Tell me what that means!” If he knows he can stop it, he can _fix it_. He can escape.

“There are sacred places in the desert,” the spirit says, “and Ba Sing Se has a long spiritual history, though it has become horribly diluted by tradition. We meet when you dream near them.”

“But it’s more than that.” It has to be. “If it was just dreaming near a spiritual place I would have ended up here way before we crossed the desert.”

The ghost is silent.

Okay so what else changed? What was present in the desert, in Ba Sing Se, that wasn’t… before…

“Shi,” Jet breathes, certain, horrified. “You’re after Shi.”

“I am not _after _him.”

“But you only meet me when I’m both around something spiritual and around _Shi_, right?”

The ghost doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.

Okay. Okay. Jet can do this. He can seat himself on the grass, he can stay in the meadow, he can be _civil_. Because this isn’t a ghost of his it’s one of Shi’s, and if this is as close as it can get then somehow Jet’s presence is pulling it off course. Away from one of his _kids_.

It’s time to be a leader.

“Alright,” Jet grits out, pulling a smile to his face and fisting his hands into the grass. “Let’s talk then. How do I make you go away?”

“You make a choice.” The Spirit sighs. “The right one, hopefully.”

“And which choice would _you _consider the right one?”

“The choice to which aides in the return of balance to the world.”

“Balance?” he’s seething, instantly. It’s hard stay seated, to speak evenly. He does it, though. He must. “What would _you people_ know of balance? You care for nothing.”

“I used to care only about my survival, and the survival of the men I led.” The man is still sitting, still so spirit-damned _calm_. “You and I are similar in that way.”

“Shut _up._” Jet reaches up to clasp his hands over his ears, but the sight of them stokes the panic in his chest. He drops them again.

“Death gives things a new perspective.” The man continues. His eyes are narrowed, but his voice remains level, almost contemplative. “If you refuse to listen to me, you will learn that yourself, soon enough.”

Jet wants to fight. He wants to choke, to tear, He rocks forward violently, stayed only by his grip on the earth. The man doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch. With a tearing growl Jet pulls back, forces himself to stay still, hunched and grimacing. “I won’t be swayed by your threats.”

The man sighs. “It isn’t a threat. It’s never been a threat.”

“Let me _out!_” Jet screams at the sky. “Let me out, let me out, let me-”

Black begins to encroach on the meadow’s edges, tearing away at the blue of the sky. Fear climbs up his throat. This part is familiar. Sometimes when the black reaches him he wakes up. Sometimes when the black reaches him he’s thrown back to the nightmares.

There’s no more time. Jet forces everything he’s feeling into three words. “I _hate_ you.”

One more smile. “But a little less now than you have before. Keep taking care of my cousin.”

Before Jet can ask, before he can _understand,_ the black is on him

And then the fire is back.

\--

A hand on his chest wakes him. Jet is half sitting before his eyes open, clasping onto the arm of his awakener. It’s Shi, half visible in the low light, crouched over him. He’s frowning, and his hand is too gentle. Jet jerks his own hand back in alarm, but there’s no fire to spread with his touch.

He’s awake. Right.

“What’s wrong?” Jet looks around. The ceiling looks strange, white paper sprinkles with black words, like a reverse night sky. Smellerbee’s curled up tightly beside him, her head tucked into his hip and her knees digging into his thigh. The hammock above him hangs empty. Longshot isn’t here. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry.” Shi looks away, uncomfortable. Turned like that the scar is completely out of view and Jet is struck, maybe for the first time, with a good guess of what Shi might have looked like if the war had been a bit kinder to him. “You were crying.”

Jet swipes at his face. His palm comes away wet. “Right.” Smile, laugh it off, C’mon now. Be stronger than this. “I don’t even remember what I was dreaming about. Lucky, right?”

Shi’s frown only deepens, and his eyes turn inward. “I don’t believe you.”

No, no, the kid is tucking this all inside himself, Jet can _see _it happening, and that is the last thing Jet wants.

He reaches out to reassure, stilling when Shi pulls back reflexively. Smiles instead. “Look this isn’t on you. I promise. I’m going to go take a dump, wash my face. And everything will be back to normal. You’ll see.”

Shi shrinks back while Jet maneuvers himself up and over Smellerbee. Jet solutes him on his way out.

The smirk falls when he steps into the hall. He wipes at his face again, rougher.

Tears, really?

Jet isn’t a child. Jet’s gone through too much shit, has too much to do, has too many people relying on him, for this.

It was just a dream.

Get a grip.

Jet can’t have moments of weakness. Jet has to be strong. They’re _watching_ him.

The bathroom is small, dark. Water feels good in his face. On his hands.

They’re shaking.

Shit.

It’s fine. He’ll just wait here until they stop, and then-

A knock on the wall outside the curtain makes him jump. “Occupied,” he calls out. The curtain swishes to the side and Jet scowls, turning to-

It’s Shi. His head is turned a bit to the side, bright eyes peeking towards Jet, not quite willing to face him head on. There’s a cup of water in his hand.

“Here.” He holds it out.

Jet can’t refuse to reach for it without inviting a misunderstanding and Shi _always_ misunderstands. He takes the cup in a tight grip and finishes it quickly, handing it back. The shake is barely visible, but Shi’s still staring at his fingers after he takes the cup back.

Something in Shi’s eyes settles, and his jaw firms. Before Jet can figure out what changed Shi’s stepping forward, closing the curtain behind him.

“What-”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he says. “We can just… sit here.” Shi does just that, sliding down the bathroom wall and folding his legs. He doesn’t pat the spot next to him. He just looks up at Jet, waiting.

Jet sighs. Sits beside him. “I really am fine.”

“You don’t have to do that, with me. I know how hard it is, being a leader.” Shi looks at him out of the corner of his eye, then away. “_This_ side of things isn’t going to scare me away.”

The new burst of curiosity is enough to cleanse some of Jet’s residual panic. Really, every time he feels like he’s close to figuring Shi out he learns something new. “You were a leader?”

A quirk of a smile with absolutely no humor in it. “Never a good one. Not like you. People followed me because they had no choice. People follow you because they want to.”

Jet closes his eyes. “They shouldn’t.” He says it to the dark. If he isn’t saying it to Shi, well it will be like he never heard it. Right? “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.”

There’s silence. Shi shifts in place but doesn’t move away.

“That night, when we talked about… what I am,” Shi starts, careful but steady, “Smellerbee said things got bad. It sounded like you-”

“I messed up.” If anyone’s going to say it, it’s going to be Jet.

“I’ve messed up before,” Shi says. His voice sounds thin. Jet still can’t make himself open his eyes. “I’ve messed up a lot.”

“Not like I did.” Jet can barely recognize his own voice. “People died. _My _people died. Smellerbee and Longshot… I don’t even know why they stayed. _I_ wouldn’t have stayed. Shi, if I could get away from myself I-” Jet chokes on the admission. It hangs in the air, boils in his gut. “But _Spirits_, I don’t want them to leave. I don’t want you to leave.”

“They aren’t going to leave,” Shi says, his voice ringing like a conclusion. “I’m… I’m doing my best. To stay. There’s something good in you.”

“There’s something bad in me too. How do you live with it?”

Shi’s twitches. Jet opens his eyes, turns his head. Shi’s face is dead, forcibly still. “With what?” 

“The Fire Nation. _Inside_ you.” It’s said harsher than Jet meant. The fact that Shi only tenses up, the fact that he doesn’t run is a miracle. “Whatever you’re doing is working, obviously. So… how are you doing it? How do you keep it from taking over?”

Shi doesn’t answer right away. He sits, every muscle tensed, like he’s waiting for something more. As time passes he begins to loosen, first his fingers, then his shoulders, then his face.

“I think you’re being too… soft. On the Fire Nation.”

Jet half laughs, disbelieving. “How am I being _soft_?”

“You think they’re monsters. Animals.”

“They _are_.”

“But if they’re just _born_ that way this war, the… the _scar_ they’ve burned into the _world_ is just them following their nature. But if they’re just like you. And they’re doing this _anyway_. That’s worse, I think.”

It _is_ worse. It’s unfathomable.

“Anyway, that’s how I… live with it. I have to believe no matter what I’ve done, or who I am, my choices, right now, matter.” Shi exhales shakily. “There’s nothing left to believe in.”

_An important choice still looms before you._

“You can believe in us,” Jet says.

Shi smiles, just a bit. It doesn’t reach his eyes, but it’s more than nothing. “I think Longshot went to find breakfast. We should… get back.”

“…Yeah.” Jet watches the kid stand, doesn’t move until Shi’s pushed the curtain aside, until it swings shut behind him. He takes a moment to square his shoulders, tuck away his rawest parts.

Somehow, they don’t feel as raw as they should.

When Jet leaves the bathroom Shi’s still there, waiting for him in the hall.

They return to the room shoulder to shoulder.

\--

After a meager breakfast they go back the brush shop. Jet hadn’t managed to talk the owner into giving Smellerbee a job the day before, but he had gotten him to agree to observing Smellerbee’s carving skills. She shifts and fidgets as the owner describes how he wants the handle carved, but when he hands her a length of bamboo and a small knife her grip is steady and her first stroke sure.

Shi lingers near the outer door. Longshot takes up a similar position by the door to the shop. Four, Jet thinks as he moves towards Shi, is a good number.

“Hey. I’m got an errand to run. Keep an eye on things for me?”

Shi, who was watching the owner with narrowed eyes, blinks over at him. “Where are you going?”

“I thought this might be a good time to take care of some unfinished business. If you’re alright with that.” He holds a hand out.

Shi’s eyes widen, then cloud. He takes the small scroll out of his outer robe and hands it to Jet, who tucks it away carefully. “Noodle shop by the train depot,” Shi says in a low voice, the directions smooth in a way that exposes long repetition. “Flowers in the window. A woman named Jui, who’s wearing white.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Shi nods. Smellerbee’s stopped, watching them. Jet sends her a brief smile, trying to reassure. When he looks to Longshot his friend is making shooing motions at him with his hands. Jet grins at him, and leaves.

The noodle shop doesn’t look like anything special. The building is squat, the windows are thin, the flowers on the windowsill are wilted, and the sign is old and weatherworn. A bell tingles happily when Jet enters, and someone yells a greeting from the back. A scrawny teenager with the signs of childhood still lingering about his face stumbles over with a harried smile. “Table for one?”

“I’m here to meet someone. Her name is Jui.”

Nothing in his expression changes. “Good, good, follow me. I’ll be sure to let you know when she arrives.”

Jet is seated in the back corner of the restaurant. He places an elbow on the table and rests his head on his hand, watching the door.

A woman glides past him from the direction of the kitchen. As promised she wears white. She doesn’t look at Jet when she approaches, but a quick stumble sends a folded fan tumbling out of her sleeve. It hits the ground and skids to a stop against Jet’s foot.

“Oh my, I’m so sorry. Would you mind handing that back to me?”

Her voice is a bit dipsy, her pointing finger a bit imperious, her painted smile a little embarrassed, but her eyes are level and intelligent. Jet stoops slowly, catching up the fan. He flicks it open with one hand, painted side out, and quickly presses the small scroll against it before holding both out towards her with a grin and a wink. She titters, deftly taking the two items. When she closes the fan and tucks it back into her sleeve the scroll is nowhere to be seen. “Thank you.”

She walks away. A man in tiny rimmed spectacles stands as she approaches. They chat naturally as they exit the noodle shop arm in arm.

The boy sets a bowl of noodles in front of him. “On the house.”

That was it. Jet is only a bit disappointed; while he’d been expecting to be ushered into a back room where he could ask after Shi’s old man and offer his services in the future he’s also deeply impressed with the smoothness of the handoff. He takes a bit more time than he usually to eat his noodles, wanting to seem natural.

The sun is climbing higher. He’s starting to feel antsy without his kids near. The time it takes to walk back to the brush shop feels too long. Too much could happen, could have already happened. Jet slips onto the monorail instead. The car is nearly full and a bit smelly, but he manages to find an empty seat.

Jet's thoughts wander as he sits. He thinks about Mu, about how to get Shi his rice, about men in dark robes who disappear under lakes. Living in a city is so much more complex than he’s used to, and the challenges are so different. He misses the forest. He misses feeling like he’s prepared for anything that comes their way.

He thought, at first, that he wouldn’t have to be that ready again. Jet had given up his post on the frontlines of the war. He’d retreated to his homeland’s greatest stronghold. He… wasn’t fit to fight.

It hadn’t taken more than a few days for Jet to realize how misguided his image of Ba Sing Se had been. The lower ring was packed and brutal, the guards were corrupt or disenfranchised, the food was hard to find, and the available work paid little. More than ever Jet needed to be cunning, be careful, be _meaner._ The few days they’d spent sleeping on the Lower Ring streets had nearly cost him everything.

The thought makes him queasy.

The car slows as it comes into a station. Occupants shift, some leaving, some entering. A robust man carrying a long box takes the seat beside Jet with an appreciative groan. He grins when he catches Jet watching him and leans over conspiratorially. “These old bones grow tired quicker than they used to. How would you like to lighten an old man’s load? For only two coins you could brew the best tea in the Lower Ring in the comfort of your own home!” he shifts the box and Jet catches the mingling scents of dried plant leaves. It takes his mind back to simpler days, to a time before-

Jet turns away. “No thanks. I barely make enough for necessities.”

“What!?” the man draws back, looking honestly affronted. “Good tea _is_ a necessity! What else can warm both the stomach and the heart of a man?” with a bit of shuffling he manages to balance the box on his knees while reaching into the pocket of his apron. He pops the lid of the long box and plops a few bundles of tied leaves into a paper bag. “Here,” he whispers loudly, “I won’t even ask for payment. Steep this in your teapot until it turns a rich brown. It will do you good!”

Jet smirks. The spiel is amusing. “I don’t own a teapot.”

“No teapot!” the man bemoans. And then, mystifyingly, he reaches across himself and turns back with a small simple teapot. He holds it and the bag out to Jet with a beaming grin. “I always carry one for the road. Go on! You can return it to me at Pao’s Teahouse, where I work.”

Jet takes the items just as the monorail pulls up to another stop, feeling spectacularly perplexed.

“I hope to see you soon,” the man says, eyes twinkling, and then he’s shuffling down the car and out onto the steps. He waves at Jet as the monorail pulls away, still grinning wide.

Cities are so _weird._

_\--_

Longshot and Shi are idling on the street corner when Jet approaches. “Smellerbee?”

“She got the job,” Shi says. He’s staring at the teapot and paper bag hanging in Jet’s grip, his brow furrowed.

Longshot quirks an eyebrow in question.

“It went fine. Real smooth.” Jet turns his attention to Shi. He doesn’t know how hard the next part will be for him to hear. “I didn’t have a chance to ask after your old man. Sorry.”

“Where’d you get that?” Shi asks. He’s still staring at the teapot.

“What? Some guy on the monorail. Why?”

“Give it.”

Jet does. Shi glances around, distrustful, and turns his back on the city street before kneeling. Jet steps forward to help block his actions from view. “So, you… like tea?”

“Not really.” Shi dumps the bag onto the ground and starts to shift through the bundles. He then places the teapot in front of him, popping the lid off and trying to fit his hand inside. Jet sends Longshot a questioning look, at a loss. Longshot shrugs. Shi grunts and sits back on his heels pulling something from the pot. A small folded piece of parchment.

Oh. _Oh_.

Oh, that’s _smart_.

“Tea guy is your old man.”

“Sadly, yes.” Shi does not seem nearly as impressed as he should.

_Jet _is impressed. Jet is so impressed he wants to kick something.

He squats down instead. “What does it say?”

Shi unfolds the paper, shielding it with a hand while he reads. After he’s done he tries to hand the paper over. Jet shakes his head. What little he’d learned before his village was destroyed, he’d forgotten in the forest. “Read it to me?”

It takes Shi a painfully long second to understand. When he does he nods and squints down. “Good friends are the jewels of a good life. I will always be near if you need me.” Shi’s voice breaks a bit on the word _need_. He clears his throat, and waits a long second before looking up. “Did… did he say…”

“He’s working at Pao’s Tea Shop. I’ll ask around, find out where that is.”

“Thanks, Jet.”

Jet chuckles, shakes his head. “I really don’t feel like I had much to do with this.”

“Still.”

It’s Jet’s turn to clear his throat, to straighten and find somewhere else to look.

He really did luck out with Shi. Jet has seen into a whole new world because of him, has found a whole new side to the war he’d never known about before this.

There _is_ a war in Ba Sing Se. It’s just _hidden_.

Forget Mu, Jet’s found where the real action is.

And he wants _in_.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Carpal Strain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832290) by [publicbenches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/publicbenches/pseuds/publicbenches)


End file.
